Tom Friedman’s column in today’s Times hails China’s progress at the expense of ours: “When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America.”

Um, Tom - China has been increasing its military spending at 8.5% a year since 1989, as Robert Haddick reported in The American, and probably at a much faster rate in the last ten years - possibly as high as 10-11%. Compared to that, comparable (non-war-related) U.S. military spending has increased at 7% a year since 2001. And even with spending on Iraq, Iran and other war-on-terror operation included, the average growth is around 11.3% - in the same range as China’s during the same time.

We haven’t built China’s Potemkin-infrastructure during this time not because we spent more than they did on the military, but because we don’t, as a free society, have the luxury of using impressed labor at below-market rates. We are also burdened by offering our citizens retirement income, healthcare, and other features absent from Chinese life.

This is not to say that China is not succeeding - for that depressing story, see Rowan Callick’s cover story in The American last December. But that we can’t - and shouldn’t - want to emulate its particular kind of success.

Three minutes’ thought would have prevented Friedman from making this absurd comparison - but as A.E. Housman says, thinking is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

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